October 2024

  • The 4 Paradoxes: (1) we surrender to win, (2) we give away to keep, (3) we suffer to get well and (4) we die to live.

    If someone would have told be prior to my arriving at AA’s door that I would be powerless over alcohol and subsequently over many, many other things – I would have just walked away from them. The thought was so ludicrous that I would not been able to even discuss it. Little did I know that this fact was the beginning of a whole new life for me and those around me. By exchanging my dependence on alcohol to a dependence (relationship) on a Higher Power, I have surrendered my need to control almost all of the decisions in my life. I can now ask God to direct my thoughts and help me make a better decision. Definitely a win in my circle.

    As with many of us, I am a slow learner and a quick forgetter. I need friends in the program to help me remember all the little things that help me stay sober. Some give AA knowledge to me and some take that knowledge from me. It’s a win-win for all. The only prerequisite is you must have some AA knowledge to be able to give it away. That’s not always the case. But everyone finds out who to listen to and who not to listen to pretty quickly. Sponsoring people is a sure way to give the program away. When you help someone go through the steps you always get as much from it as you give. Again, a win in my circle.

    To grow mentally and spiritually usually requires some pain. We don’t want to change our life without fighting back. This lifestyle has worked (somewhat) for many years and now you are suggesting that your new way of thinking and living are better? I didn’t think so! But, as it turns out you were right – Steps 5 and 9 help me clear away the wreckage of my past and allow me to live in the moment. I can now listen to you without thinking of my response. Just listen, NOT fix. Again, a win.

    My old ways, my old thoughts and my old actions have died away. Some did not die totally and I must constantly play whack-a-mole with them but they are better (I think).

    There is no comparison between the old me and the current me. And the real key is – I hope and pray that this journey of growth continues and I get closer to my God and better with my friends and family. The real win.

    -Mick S

  • I may need some tranquilizers for a week while I’m detoxing so I don’t get the DTs or have a stroke. Maybe I’ll even need something for a month or two to cut down the cravings. But no medication by itself will keep me sober for good.

    I need to get to AA meetings. “But meetings only give me relief. The Steps keep me sober.”

    I’m a private person and I don’t want to tell others about my personal business. But if I don’t open up to at least one other human being and get all the garbage off my chest, I’ll drink again. “I get drunk; we stay sober.”

    I already regret all my past bad actions; I’ll just leave it in the past. But unless I “clean up the wreckage of my past,” my conscience will eat me alive and drive me back to the bottle.

    I’ve had enough of religion & I think churches are full of phonies. This “Higher Power” stuff is BS. But I never could fix myself by myself, and I need something bigger than willpower to keep me sane, sober, and useful.

    AA shouldn’t work. But if Rational Recovery and Cognitive Behavior Therapy and magic mushrooms and mindfulness and yoga and working all the time and sex and going to the gym and money didn’t keep alcohol from destroying my soul and flushing my life down the toilet– well, maybe somebody else has a better idea.

    -Kevin P.

    Northside Tuesday Night Group

  • Before I could ever achieve victory over ‘King Alcohol’ I had to cease fighting it. However, before I could stop fighting alcohol (and everything else I dove chin first into combat with) I had to cease fighting God. This was paramount in my fight against myself, alcohol, outside issues, people, places and things. I was in collision with everyone and everything I encountered in my life because I had declared war on God

    Negotiating the terms of my surrender with God was simple. I got on my knees and said this verbatim, “Man, I don’t know why or how, I don’t need to know. I just know you’re the only way out of this ‘crap’ and I can’t do it without you. I need to know you if I’m going to trust you to see me thru this. Will you please help me and show me who you are?”

    Instantly my obsession to drink was removed and a friendship began that would quickly become an intimate relationship with the love of my life

    As I was seeing things, as they truly are for the first time, I realized that God didn’t do things to me. In fact He had been doing for me all the things that I couldn’t and wouldn’t do for myself my whole life. This was the beginning of my victorious surrender to God and set in motion victory over all my internal battles that had been going on ceaselessly in my head for as long as I could remember.

    Gods grace is a most special gift, that In order to receive I must give it away. I can’t stock up on God’s Grace and save it for emergencies I can’t keep it like a precious jewel. In fact it has very little value once it has been attained as it immediately depreciates. That is until it has been given away to someone else. Then the value is restored when it’s gifted as a blessing to another person

    It’s like a hot potato really and that must be quickly passed on to the next person in order for it to come back around to me

    -Andrew M.

  • Previous Name: Friday Night Southgate Group (because it originated in Southgate)

    Date Founded: April 1972

    Founders: Ashley Ward and Lanny Shepherd

    Early Members: Lanny Shepherd, Ashley Ward, Bonnie Garrison (first female), and Betty Howell. Lanny is the only living member.

    Place of First Meeting: St. Therese Catholic Church

    Day and Time of First Meeting: Fridays at 8:30 pm

    Current Meeting Place: St. Paul United Church of Christ at 7:30 pm

    One evening in April of 1972, two men went on a 12-step call to Batesville Hospital in Indiana. Lanny and Ashley were about 9 months sober at the time and Batesville was the only treatment facility for alcoholics in the ?Tri-State area. On the way back from Batesville, these two men decided to stop at St. Therese Church and ask Fr. Brinker who was paster at the time, if they could start an AA meeting there. He said they could because he found there were a lot of people with alcohol problems that he could not help. And so it was, these two men started the Friday Night AA meeting in Southgate, Kentucky.

    There was only one other meeting in Campbell County at that time which was on Tuesday evening at St. Stephen’s in Newport. It was a Lead Meeting, so the Friday Night Southgate AA Meeting was the first discussion meeting in Campbell County.

    Lanny and Ashley bought a coffee pot and began. Eventually some members from the Tuesday Night Newport Group came out to give support to the new meeting. Bonnie G. joined them and became the fist female at the meeting. Lanny was the first chairperson and Ashley the first Secretary and Treasurer. The next month Ashley was the Chairperson and Lanny was the Secretary and Treasurer. They alternated these positions until more members joined the group. Tom L. gave the fist Lead as it was decided to have a Lead the third Friday of each month. Two other supporters from the Newport Group, Bob Gerding and Jim Johnson, joined the group.

    Lanny S. decided to test the waters but has long since returned an still attends this, his Homegroup. Ashley, a sober member of AA, passed as a result of cancer. The other early members have all also passed on.

    The Melbourne Group at St. Ann’s Convent, which is also still going strong, was an offshoot of the Southgate Group.

    The group stayed at St. Therese from 1972 through 1984. The group then went to Southgate Methodist Church, as St. Therese was remodeling and no longer able to accommodate us. We then moved to Southgate Methodist because we wanted to stay in Southgate. After several years, a Daycare at the church began, leaving less and less room for our AA meeting. We then went to St. Paul’s U.C.C. Church but decided to move again to the Christian Church on Alexandria Pike in Ft. Thomas. For some reason no one can remember, we only stayed for a short time there and returned to St. Paul in Ft. Thomas. It is still called the Southgate Group but inserted

    “Southgate On The Hill” when we relocated to Ft. Thomas where we continue to share our experience, strength and hope.

    Submitted by: Terry H. (as dictated by Lanny S)

  • The First Paradox: Our Suffering Keeps Us Well

    Some say that addiction is a life lived elsewhere: the compulsion to drink or use drugs is always present and inescapable, and a person in active addiction has to continually plan to satisfy their next craving. Even when they're in a room full of people, they're completely alone in their addiction. And it's only a matter of time before everything comes crumbling down. Eventually a person can bear this no longer.

    People in Twelve Step meetings refer to this as "growing sick and tired of being sick and tired," and everyone in recovery intuitively understands what it means: the illness of addiction has made life unbearable for a person and for their friends and family. It's a constant nightmare—but it's also the force that's great enough to get a person sober and hopefully to keep them sober. That pain and that gift of desperation become the threadwork for hope and recovery. And when a person learns how to work a Twelve Step program and leave behind the misery of addiction, their recovery will always be, in part, thanks to that pain—they are refusing to return to that state of utter hopelessness.

    The Second Paradox: We Surrender to Win

    People who enter treatment for their substance abuse are often told to surrender, but that concept can be incredibly confusing. And interestingly enough, surrender isn't used in Alcoholics Anonymous to describe the Twelve Steps, making it even harder for a person to learn how to surrender. To clarify, surrender means to stop fighting, to stop resisting everything in life. Within the context of the Twelve Steps, a person has to tear down all the emotional and philosophical walls they built up: No more fighting the program. No more fighting to do everything alone. And no more fighting Higher Powers and past resentments. Just let things be and let things flourish within. Surrender is to make room for other things to grow and to allow room for other systems of belief. Surrender is to accept that life has been messy and perhaps miserable because of addiction. Surrender is to accept that the solution exists outside a person's own mind: "My best thinking got me here." Then a person can make room for the Steps, and let go of selfish and self-defeating behavior, and they can start to live in the solution.

    The Third Paradox: We Are Reborn in Death

    Fritz Pearls, the founder of Gestalt Therapy, said "To suffer one's death and be reborn is not easy." And neither is the path of recovery for much the same reason: the deconstruction of the addicted identity is never an easy task. In fact, it was an early member of Alcoholics Anonymous who said that the Steps are an exercise of uncovering, discovering and discarding that takes place over the entirety of life. In treatment centers and Twelve Step meetings all across the country, people are quick to repeat that they "leave claw marks" on everything they have to let go of. Perhaps this is because they're afraid of the unknown and of trying new things. Perhaps the familiar villain is less frightening than the new one. Or maybe it's just the addiction speaking. But when a person is capable of letting that addicted ego die, their fear will be replaced slowly and surely by new confidence and the ability to see beauty in even the smallest things, where the present and the rest of life are happening.

    The Fourth Paradox: We Give Away to Keep

    After working their way through the first nine Steps, a person will reach the part of the program that's dedicated to "recovery maintenance." Steps 10–12 are the instructions for continued honest living: nightly inventories, contact with a Higher Power and being of service to the recovery community. It is at this point where a person will hopefully look back at their journey. If they look carefully enough, they will no doubt see the thumbprints of countless individuals who cared enough to help: The kind staff and counselors at the treatment center. The friendly Twelve Step members who greeted everyone at the door. The patient sponsor who answered the phone during that late-night panic attack. No success in recovery is alone, and every success comes with a debt: a person owes it to everyone else in their community to keep giving back. And in this act of giving, a person also receives much more than could ever be asked for: a lasting recovery and a lifetime of happiness. And although addiction was a life lived elsewhere, recovery is the journey of coming home to self.

    Editor's note: We prefer to use language that destigmatizes the disease of addiction. We don't ordinarily use terms like alcohol abuse and substance abuse because they imply that people with substance or alcohol use disorders are "abusers," rather than people with a terrible disease. However, we have decided to keep the terms substance abuse and alcohol abuse in this blog in order to reach the people who use those terms to search for help with their addiction.

    -Reprinted from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation blog